CRISIS IN COMPLIANCE
Why firms don’t invest
money, manpower or
technology in it.
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HOW WALL STREET OPERATES

Volume 22 Number 11 • June 7, 2010

UPTICK p. 5

Joining the Hit Parade

RISK p. 14
Putting Bar Codes on Securities
SPECIAL REPORT p. 20
Automating Collateral Management
LAST WORD p. 23
Too Much Money

Microsoft
Pivots to Serve
Wall Street, in
Office and Online
TRADING PROFILE FULL STORY ON PAGE 8
License to
Operate: What
May Be In Store
(or Not)
By John Hintze
MOST WALL STREET FIRMS’
desktop computers run on a
version of the Microsoft Win-
dows operating system. Criti-
cal sta;, from chief ;nancial
o;cers to traders, have long
used Microsoft’s Excel spread-
sheet application to analyze
market and transaction data,
build ;nancial models and
track results.
But the software giant
wants to move securities ;rms
beyond viewing it principally
as a provider of o;ce produc-
tivity software and number-
crunching worksheets. The
;rm has bolstered Excel so it
can tackle at least 100 million
rows of data at one time, and
it has enabled securities ;rms’
sophisticated analysis and
trading applications to reside
and run on its Azure cloud-
computing service. The moves
are examples of how the Red-
mond, Wash., ;rm is priming
itself to be part of the digital
By Katherine Heires
SUNGARD DATA SYSTEMS,
the 27-year-old privately held
provider of software applica-
tions to the world’s largest
;nancial service ;rms, is rein-
SunGard’s ‘One-Stop-Shop’: Risky Step?
CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
WISDOM
IN THE CLOUD
Yes, you can execute automated
trading strategies on servers you
share, online. Ernie Chan is doing it.
By Chris Kentouris
IT FINALLY HAPPENED.
Operations executives in the
United States will be treated
just like traders, brokers and
other deal-making executives.
They will have to get
a license, to operate every
day and to meet continuing-
education standards. But those
requirements may not be
terribly strenuous.
For the ;rst time, manag-
ers of reorganization depart-
ments, custody departments,
securities lending and collat-
eral management will be sub-
ject to licensing requirements
imposed by the Financial In-
dustry Regulatory Authority
(FINRA), the regulatory agen-
cy for broker-dealers. Com-
ments on FINRA’s proposal

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
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as morphing into the trad-
ing equivalent of an Apple
iPhone, providing access to
an ever-expanding array of
applications.
“What this
means is that if
you are a SunGard
customer—a broker dealer, for
example—and want to expand
into new trading services such
as dark pool access or options
trading, everything you need
to make the shift into a new
trading area will now be at
your ;ngertips,” he said.